Chapter 648 Stealing Lotus Pods
Manbao and Bai Shanbao sat in the study, each occupying a small desk. They looked out the window at Bai Erlang who was talking to his teacher, and sighed together.
Then he resigned himself to his fate and lowered his head to write.
They were punished. In addition to their original homework, they had to write three Chinese characters. In Mr. Zhuang's words, "If jade is not polished, it will not become a useful object. These two pieces of jade may not have been polished for a long time."
After writing the three Chinese characters, the two of them honestly took their characters to the teacher for comments.
Mr. Zhuang took it and looked at it for a while before shaking his head. "It's still a little bit lacking in practice. From now on, you should write two pages of medium-sized characters every day. You don't need to practice large characters anymore."
The two men bowed in response.
Mr. Zhuang waved his hand and said, "Go and have fun."
Manbao and Baishan breathed a sigh of relief, stepped forward, held Bai Er on the left and right, and pulled him out the door.
Bai Er was caught off guard and was carried out of the yard. He came to his senses and asked, "What are you doing?"
"Go practice wall climbing."
"We have ladders, why do we need to practice climbing walls?"
Manbao said, "Are you stupid? We were supposed to learn how to climb the wall. If the ladder is discovered, we can run away or get back in. The ladder is just a solution for the immediate emergency."
Bai Shan said, "You still expect me to set up and move ladders for you every day. You're dreaming."
That’s what Bai Jilang thought.
However, he was alone and weak, and he watched Bai Shan and Man Bao stretching their legs and jumping under Daji's guidance, and then quickly they could walk a few steps on the wall, so he decided to practice with them.
Bai Jilang found that sneaking into the library to read books was an interesting but tiring game.
Although the miscellaneous books in the library are interesting, they are not as good as playing outside.
So after being well behaved for a few days, he finally couldn't help but quietly go out to play with Wei Chen, leaving Bai Shan and Man Bao behind.
At first, the two of them were just playing in the provincial school.
Anyway, there are many students in the provincial school, and the servants don’t know every one of them, let alone the clerks and school officials.
So he was very safe in the provincial school.
Later, Wei Chen envied them for being able to come and go so easily, so he decided to sneak out using their ladder and take Bai Erlang out to play.
Of course, Manbao and the others occasionally join in.
It’s just a pity that Mr. Zhuang keeps a close eye on the two of them, assigning them heavy reading tasks, and every time they come home, Mr. Zhuang always asks them questions.
Ask about the content of the book, ask about the gains, ask if they have any questions...
He said to Bai Shan, "Originally, we planned to go to the capital to try out the Sixth Academy after three or two years of studying at the Imperial Academy. Therefore, your time is very tight. I won't restrict you from playing, but you must also pay attention to the time. You don't have much time to play every day."
Turning back to Manbao, he said, "What you learn is different from what Shanbao Erlang learns. Generally speaking, what you need to learn is more in-depth. Although I only know some medical theories, I also know that the art of healing and saving lives cannot be learned overnight. You must persist day by day and not slack off."
"So I'll allow you to spend half your time every day studying medicine at the pharmacy. You'll have less time to study than they do, but you'll learn just as much. So where will you find the time? You'll have to squeeze it in yourself." Mr. Zhuang said something he and Zhou Silang often said, "Work hard now, and you'll be able to achieve something when you grow up."
I don’t know whether Mr. Zhuang believed it himself, but Manbao did.
With Mr. Zhuang's encouragement and the arrival of autumn, the weather gradually became cooler, and Manbao no longer felt so depressed and irritable when studying.
And after persistent training, they are now able to climb up the wall without the help of a ladder and jump down the wall by supporting themselves.
Not only the relatively low wall on the west side of the prefectural school, but also the relatively high wall of the Yan family could be jumped up and then jumped down safely.
So, after Manbao stepped on the wall and climbed up for the first time, she glanced at the lotus pond hidden behind the trees. She couldn't help but jumped towards Yan's house.
Bai Shan and Bai Erlang, who were still cheering for her, were stunned. They immediately took a few steps back, jumped onto the top of the wall, and then jumped over there.
Daji: ...
He followed them reluctantly, and by the time he got past, the three had already run some distance away.
The three of them ran to the lotus pond. The lotus pods were just right, but they had no boat and couldn't swim, so they could only stand by and stare blankly. After stretching their hands several times and finding that they couldn't reach them, they looked at Daji.
Daji moved his head to the side and paused.
Everyone followed his gaze and saw the abandoned boat on the shore. The three of them were not afraid of being heard, so they cheered and ran towards the boat.
Bai Erlang ran the fastest and reached out to pull the boat, but as soon as he started to pull it, he felt it was as heavy as a thousand pounds. He pulled it with all his strength, but it didn't move at all. He pushed it again with all his strength, but it still didn't move at all.
Bai Erlang couldn't help but stand up and look at Bai Shan and Manbao.
The two men had already bent down to look for the cause. After the three of them walked around, they realized that the boat had been parked for too long and had run aground on the shore. They didn't know if there was a bump at the bottom that blocked it, so it couldn't be pushed.
Bai Shan touched the wooden boat, knocked on it and said, "It looks pretty sturdy. Why don't we turn it over?"
This was a good idea. The three of them walked up to the boat and worked together to flip it over. Only then did they see that there was a bump at the bottom of the boat, which had blocked the bottom.
When the three men saw that the boat was turned over, they laughed and turned it over again and pushed it into the water.
The three of them rushed up and after sitting for a while they found that the boat was swaying on the water but not moving, and they were stunned for a moment.
Daji found two pieces of wood from somewhere and got on the boat.
The three of them were young, so there was no way he would let them go into the water and play by themselves.
After giving them the plank, Daji went to the stern and sat down. Manbao took the plank and paddled in the water and asked, "How do you paddle this?"
Bai Erlang tried to grab the wooden board from her hand and said, "Just scratch it casually. As long as you can make it move, it's fine."
Manbao slapped his hand away without hesitation and shouted, "I know, you have to row the other way. I'll go first."
Bai Shan had already put the wooden board into the water and started rowing. It was the first time for everyone, and with one stroke, the wooden boat started spinning in place.
Daji didn't care about them and let them make a fuss. Anyway, they had to go back when it got dark.
The three of them rowed around for a while, laughing and joking, and slowly found the feeling and pattern, and rowed the boat to the middle of the lotus pond.
It was already late summer, the time when lotus pods were ripe. Manbao and his friends picked the lotus pods that looked big and ripe. The three of them worked together and picked more than twenty of them in a short time.
Seeing that their interest was not diminishing but rather getting more and more excited, Daji reminded them: "If you pick too much, you won't be able to eat it all."
Bai Shan glanced at the lotus pods piled at his feet and said, "Pick a few more. There are many people in our family, so we can each eat a few and that's it."
Manbao nodded repeatedly and pointed at one, saying, "That one is big, that one is big, let's go over there quickly."
Bai Erlang pointed to another place and said, "There are more over there, and it's bigger too. Let's go there first..."
Happy Mid-Autumn Festival
(End of this chapter)
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